Just as if their way they'd miss'd,
Really plotting to be kiss'd;
With their false pretended struggling,
Flushing, blushing, squealing, guggling,
When some brainless bat-blind noodle,
Cleverly as might a poodle.
Catch a cake from off his nose,
Through the farce of kissing goes.
Tells of beastly boys from school,
Home to gorge and play the fool;
With their never-ceasing din
Turning houses outside in;
With their pudding-fatten'd lips
Ev'ry hour suggesting "tips,"
Craving ghastly pantomimes,
Mummeries of by-gone times,

That kill one's temper, split one's head,
And keep one whole nights out of bed.
Tells of sleet and snow and ice,
Which some fools pretend are nice,-
"Just the thing for winter weather,"
As if one's nerves were made of leather!
As if sneezing were delightful,
Chilblains anything but frightful,
Goose-flesh quite a state to seek,
Colds to long for by the week :
Bah!-these blatant fools to hear,
It ought to freeze one-half the year,
Since nothing so the soul elates
As writhing on a pair of skates!-
Tells of Christmas-boxes, bills,
As if one carried bankers' tills,
Hand in pocket all the day,
Voices shouting, Pay! pay! pay!
Carnival of bold extortion!
Justice turned to grim abortion !—
Visits from one's poor relations
With their mis'rable jobations,
And their genteel mendicancy
Undetected, as they fancy,
And their petty, pointless prattle,
Scandal, lies, and tittle-tattle,
Judgments" quite disinterested,"
News of people long detested,
Sycophantic hopes and fears,
Sickly smiles, and sick'ning tears,-
As if one had not eyes to see
Such lying for a legacy!

Those Christmas bells! those Christmas

bells!

My breast with indignation swells,

As I sit here and think of all

The cant and humbug, great and small,
Their clanging, banging will let loose :
By Jove, I wish myself a goose !—
One tough enough to disagree
With all who disagree with me.

CHARLES SMITH CHELTNAM.

A SONG FOR THE YOUNG AND THE

WISE. (Extract.)

CHRISTMAS comes ! He comes, he comes,
Usher'd with a rain of plums;

Hollies in the windows greet him;
Schools come driving post to meet him;
Gifts precede him, bells proclaim him,
Every mouth delights to name him;
Wet, and cold, and wind, and dark,
Make him but the warmer mark;
And yet he comes not one-embodied,
Universal's the blithe godhead,
And in every festal house
Presence hath ubiquitous.

Curtains, those snug room-enfolders,
Hang upon his million shoulders.
And he has a million eyes

Of fire, and eats a million pies,
And is very merry and wise;
Very wise and very merry,
And loves a kiss beneath the berry.

LEIGH HUNT. Poetical Works. (G. Routledge and Sons.)

STILL, as the day comes round
For Thee to be reveal'd,

By wakeful shepherds Thou art found,
Abiding in the field.

All through the wintry heaven and chill night air,
In music and in light Thou dawnest on their

prayer.

JOHN KEBLE. Christian Year.

SEASON of Social mirth! of fireside joys!
I love thy shorten'd day, when, at its close,
The blazing tapers, on the jovial board,
Dispense o'er every care-forgetting face
Their cheering light, and round the bottle glides.
JAMES GRAHAME.

UNDER THE HOLLY BOUGH.

YE who have scorn'd each other,

Or injured friend or brother,

In this fast-fading year;
Ye who, by word or deed,
Have made a kind heart bleed,

Come gather here.

Let sinn'd against and sinning
Forget their strife's beginning,

And join in friendship now;
Be links no longer broken;
Be sweet forgiveness spoken

Under the Holly Bough.

Ye who have loved each other,
Sister and friend and brother,

In this fast-fading year;
Mother and sire and child,
Young man and maiden mild,

Come gather here;

And let your hearts grow fonder,
As Memory shall ponder

Each past unbroken vow;
Old loves and younger wooing
Are sweet in the renewing,

Under the Holly Bough.

Ye who have nourish'd sadness,
Estranged from hope and gladness,

In this fast-fading year;

Ye with o'erburden'd mind,
Made aliens from your kind,

Come gather here.
Let not the useless sorrow
Pursue you night and morrow :

If e'er you hoped, hope now;
Take heart,-uncloud your faces,
And join in our embraces

Under the Holly Bough.

CHARLES MACKAY. Poetical Works. (F. Warne and Co.)

A SONG FOR THE FESTIVE SEASON.

BY THE FATHER OF A FAMILY.

Those Christmas bills! those Christmas bills!
They are the worst of human ills.
The sight of them all pleasure kills;
They crush it like the stones of mills.
With grief and fear their presence fills
The jolliest Jacks, the gentlest Jills;
They haunt the drivers of the quills,
While drawing deeds, or copying wills;
The toper as he sits and swills

Scarce drowns the thought of Christmas bills.

Those Christmas bills! those Christmas bills!
They come from Snow and Holborn Hills,
From Moses', Mutton's, Brown's and Brill's;
For boots and bonnets, tapes and twills;
For children's frocks, and shirts with frills;
For chops and steaks, and grogs and grills;
For fencing lessons, foils, and drills,
For teaching Jane her runs and trills,
For curing Freddy's cough and Will's ;
For mending doors and window-sills;
For gin which Mr. H. distils;

For brandy sold in kegs and gills;
For mixtures made of salts and squills,
For beef and blisters, beer and pills.

Those Christmas bills! those Christmas bills!
The thought of them my mind instils
With apprehensions, doubts, and chills;
They floor me more than hunting spills.
At Christmas time my comfort nil's;
My tears run down in little rills,

Through thinking of those Christmas bills!

Once a Week.

RIGHT thy most unthrifty glee, And pious thy mince-piety!

LEIGH HUNT.

Poetical Works. (Routledge.)

WHEN I WAS YOUNG.

WHEN I was young, then Yule-tide came to me With joys known but to children sorrow-free: 'Twas then the feast of Love, Affection's Jubilee.

O Christmas, merry Christmas!
'Tis not so very long
Since other voices blended

With the carol and the song!
If we could but hear them singing

As they are singing now,

If we could but see the radiance

Of the crown on each dear brow; There would be no sigh to smother, No hidden tear to flow,

As we listen in the starlight

To the "bells across the snow."

O Christmas, merry Christmas!
This never more can be;
We cannot bring again the days
Of our unshadowed glee.
But Christmas, happy Christmas,
Sweet herald of goodwill,
With holy songs of glory

Brings holy gladness still.
For peace and hope may brighten,
And patient love may glow,
As we listen in the starlight
To the "bells across the snow."

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.
Under the Surface. (Nisbet.)

[Printed by kind permission of Messrs. Hutchings and Romer, to whom the exclusive copyright belongs, and by whom the words are published, arranged as a song.]

FIVE O'CLOCK TEA.

WHEN the short daylight in winter is dying, And shadows outside make the landscape look drear,

Who for an instant would think of denying

The cosiest spot in the county is here? Here in the drawing-room warm and unlighted, Except by the flames that seem dancing in glee, Here our large party is once more united,

All eager and ready for Five o'clock tea.

Amy's the priestess who pours the libations,
And we are the worshippers waiting our turn-
While for a time are left all occupations

That each one may drink to the god of the
Urn-

Some have been shooting, and some have been skating,

And fun too in snowballing some of them see, Yet one and all without any debating

Have rushed in a body to Five o'clock tea.

Every bright eye is now flashing more brightly,
Lit up by the embers that flicker and glow,
Gay girlish laughter is echoing lightly,

In answer to words in pink ears whispered low. Never was time more adapted for flirting

Than that which is sacred to fragrant Bohea; Cupid is always his power asserting,

But many his conquests at Five o'clock tea.

Who then would scorn the delight which it offers ? Its laughter and whispers, its chatter and fun? Only a few dull unsociable scoffers

Whose domestication is little or none. They would most probably clamour for "Bitter," Or even descend to the fast " S. and B." "Let them," say I, for such Goths these were fitter, But we ne'er will cede from our Five o'clock tea. SOMERVILLE GIBNEY.

Now peace upon earth and good will to man,
That sometimes, alas! do all that we can,
Ill-humour and sulks will smother,
Let that be our feeling and that our toast,
As here in the blaze our legs we roast,

And we warm to each one as a brother;
For Christmas to man was given,
Forgiving and all forgiven,

That in its red glow

Our hearts might know

The love and the peace of heaven.

Oh, I verily think that the warm old soul
Of Christmas that's penn'd in log and in coal,
Is loosed when the piled fire's blazing;
And, being too wise from its blaze to roam,
In the eyes and the hearts of us takes its home,
Our souls to its own warmth raising;

So let its red blazing scare
Off sorrow, remorse, and care,
And our hearts in its light,
This Christmas night,
Be bright as its red heart there.
W. C. BENNETT.

THROUGH the long night, and through the hush,
The silence just before the day,--
Moves the great moon: a tender flush

Commingled with her colder ray!
Moon, thou art seen from haunts of earth
Through pleasure's mellow atmosphere !--
Soft be the light of peace, of mirth,

In Christmas! In the fair New Year!
EDEN HOOper.

DON'T you love the mistletoe,

Pretty little maiden ! Don't your cheeks turn all a-glow When you see its beads of snow Hanging very nice and low,

Bonny little maiden?
Heigho for long ago!

And hey the merry mistletoe,

Jolly little maiden !

F. LANGBRIDge.

A CHRISTMAS CHANT.

Now tell me what more can a man desire
Than a jolly red roaring Christmas fire,

And a ring of old friends around it!
If earth has a glimpse into paradise,
Much better than this, for mortal eyes,

I should like to know who has found it.
For, faces that all the year
Have been pleasant, how doubly dear
Do your warm looks show
In the Christmas glow
Of the red fire roaring here!

WINTER COMING.

I'm glad we have wood in store awhile,
For soon we must shut the door awhile,
As winterly winds may roar awhile,

And scatter the whirling snow.

The swallows have now all hied away,
And most of the flowers have died away,
And boughs, with their leaves all dried away,
Are windbeaten to and fro.

Your walks in the ashtree droves are cold,
Your banks in the timber'd groves are cold,
Your seats on the garden coves are cold,
Where sunheat did lately glow.

No rosebud is blooming red to-day,
No pink for your breast or head to-day,
O'erhanging the garden bed to-day,

Is nodding its sweet head low.

No more is the swinging lark above,
And air overclouded dark above,
So baffles the sun's last spark above

That shadows no longer show.

So now let your warm cheek bloom to-night,
While fireflames heat the room to-night,
Dispelling the flickering gloom to-night,

While winds of the winter blow.
WILLIAM BARnes.

Gathers again that little band, as gathered they of yore,

But with a mirth more softened, the childish glee is o'er

For from that loving company of youths and maidens fair,

A gentle sister hath been ta'en, they mourn her absence there.

Again, full many a mystic year hath passèd swiftly by,

Like silvery or stormy clouds that flit across the sky,

And after many a varied scene of joy and grief and

pain

A few of that once merry group, keep Christmas Day again.

CHRISTMAS.

(Macmillan.)

YE wynter wynde blows loude ande chille, Ye twyggs are sylvern alle with rime,

It is eneuche a manne to kylle,

But Christmas is a merrie tyme!

It is ye season of ye bells,

From ev'rie steeple clangs a chyme,
I often wishe them somewhere else,
But Christmas is a merrie tyme!

Now jigs and dances are ye rage,
Now shynes ye starr of pantomime,
For both I long am past ye age,

But Christmas is a merrie tyme !

Now struts ye guse with little reck,

That he hath cost full many a dime, But shortly shall they wringe hys neck,-For Christmas is a merrie tyme !

ROBERT REECE.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

HEAR the merry prattlers shout
As, gathering the board about,
With childish glee and hearts all gay,

They frolic through the Christmas Day.

way,

And changes strange the world hath seen since that

first Christmas Day.

A generation hath gone down since those gay chil

dren met,

And one alone of all that race is spared to greet us

yet.

Oh! epochs of our transient lives, what sadness of the soul

Would pain our aching memories, were death alone man's goal!

But He, the pure and Holy One, whose festival we

keep,

On such a morn as this arose and shook off deathlike sleep :

Yea, on this glorious morning, in dim ages now long past

Rang through the world the Risen Voice, like angel's trumpet blast,

That Voice that bids our hearts to brave, our

souls to bear all pain,

Saying, "On high, above the sky, ye all shall meet again."

W. A. GIBBS.

Seven Years' Writing for Seven Days' Reading. (E. Moxon.)